“Get your facts first; them distort them as you please.” — Mark Twain



At the risk of sounding too redundant and without wishing to appear apologetic, I thought I would try to clarify what I think might be a misunderstanding regarding the Circuit Court No. 3 (formerly Superior Court No. 3) Alcohol and Drug Services Fund. I will in no way attempt to justify any expenditure, as I think that issue has been addressed pretty well by former Superior 3 and current Senior Judge Steve Fleece.

The issue I want to clarify is simply that these funds were never an additional charge on any fine. The price of a levied fine would have been the same even had Judge Fleece not started the program. I will try to explain in simple terms and by using a hypothetical round number of a $100 fine.

What Judge Fleece did was find something of a technicality in the law that would allow a portion of the ticket price to remain locally to be used for drug and alcohol awareness programs and some funds were even used to administer the program — such as by paying the salaries involved with processing the fines and some associated court costs. Where the real issue came up was how some funds were being used for things like funding youth programs or buying equipment.

The result of the audit and the discontinuing of the program is very simply this: One hundred percent of all fines paid will now go the state and a bureaucrat in Indianapolis will decide how to distribute those funds. That means the funds that were being used in the county will no longer be spent in Clark County. Since there never was a raise in the fines assessed for the program, there will correspondingly be no lowering of any fines levied. In both cases, a person would have paid the exact same amount.

I do not have a final figure at this point, but am being told that close to $750,000 that was being used as a supplement by county government for some services associated with the ticket fines and accompanying court expenses will now have to come out of county government taxes and another three quarters of a million dollars will have to come out of the already overstretched county budget.

This program has been going on for decades and has continuously been audited. It now somehow smells of something political that after almost 20 years, this is being scrutinized so thoroughly. Judge Fleece has admitted that some of the expenditures in retrospect were requests to which he should have said “no” to. For those, any criticism is justifiable and probably deserved.

You have to decide as a taxpayer if this result is a plus or minus for you and if the state controlling agency will see that we get the share of what was being kept to spend in Clark County.



What if they held an election and nobody cared?

In all of my time observing Clark County politics, this is the least-discussed and lowest-key campaigning I can remember. If you live in the county, the result of the primary and general elections should be of great importance to you.

Voters should keep in mind that the biggest county issue over the last few years were votes that resulted in a shortfall in the amount of money the county had to spend. Once the maximum levy was lowered, it could not be raised again, except by special request to the Department of Local Government Finance. This has created major financial constraints for the county.

Also, if you are a county employee, then these elections are vitally important in terms of county members and county commissioners. One example is the recent take-back of the 3 percent PERF contributions from all county employees. The 3 percent was an agreement as part of a requested $2,500 raise several years ago. Only a portion of that raise was granted and the 3 percent retirement contribution was a compromise to add to the lower employee raises.

So, in effect, when that 3 percent was no longer given, all employees were on the receiving end of an economic take-back and therefore suffered a 3 percent decrease in pay (even though they received an explanation citing it was a mandated 3 percent contribution). Since county employee raises come very sparingly, if lucky perhaps two in a decade, then any raise in the next few years will simply be the same raise given granted years earlier.

Some people will say anything to the ignorant voting public to get elected. I don’t blame them any more than I do people who will vote without educating themselves before casting their ballots. That is simply the result of a lazy democracy (or Republic).

Regardless of your political feelings — due to state and federal mandates and simple common sense — it takes some base amount of funding to operate a county government and all pay for all of its services.

— Lindon Dodd is a freelance writer who lives in Otisco and can be reached at lindon.dodd@hotmail.com